The present invention relates to truss structures that can be collapsed into compact forms for storage and/or transportation and conversely deployed or expanded for use in various applications. The truss structures have numerous uses in outer space as large size structures such as parabolic antennas and solar heat ray collectors placed in orbit and emergency shelters for medical treatment in disaster areas on earth.
In the exploration and study of outer space, it is often necessary to erect structures made up of panels in space. This necessitates auxiliary assistance such as that of a robot arm of a space shuttle or that of one or more astronauts working outside a spacecraft. However, such auxiliary assistance is expensive. Furthermore, the duration of flight of a space shuttle is limited. For this reason, the size and scope of the structures which can be erected in space are limited. Moreover the time required for the erection of such structures tends to become long.
Accordingly, deployable or expansible structural assemblies capable of expanding or unfolding automatically without outside assistance become necessary. Expansible structures of such character have been proposed as disclosed in, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 025,362 or U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,920.
The teachings of these known proposals, however, are insufficient for expansible supporting construction having curved surfaces such as parabolic surfaces. For example, according to the prior art, only planar panels or panel surfaces are expansible, and no consideration has been given to supporting construction such as trusswork for supporting panel surfaces, and therefore there is no practical merit.